Remarks by the President at South Dakota Welcome
Northern State University
Barnett Center
Aberdeen, South Dakota

9:40 A.M. CST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thanks a lot for coming. Thanks
for having me here. The next time you get me to come back, let's go
pheasant hunting. (Applause.) I can't go today. (Laughter.) I've
got to work. I'm traveling our country to remind people that the
American spirit is alive and well today. (Applause.)

That spirit is the spirit of a determined nation willing to defend
our freedoms, no matter what the cost. (Laughter.) That American
spirit says loud and clear that we're willing to serve something
greater than ourselves. We're willing to serve people in need, a
community we love. And part of the American spirit is for our citizens
to exercise their duty, and their duty is to cast a vote on November
the 5th. You have a duty. (Applause.) You have a duty in this
country -- if you believe in freedom, if you believe in the values
that make this country the finest nation on the face of the Earth, you
have a duty to go to the polls. That's part of what it means to live
in a free society.

I want to thank you all who have voted. I want to thank you who
are fixing to vote. And I've got some suggestions for you when you get
inside the voting booth. (Laughter.) For the sake of South Dakota
-- for the sake of South Dakota, for the sake of our country, John
Thune should be the next United States senator. (Applause.) For the
sake of South Dakota and for the sake of the country, Bill Janklow
needs to be the next United States congressman. (Applause.) And for
the sake of South Dakota, particularly the sake for excellence in
education, Mike Rounds needs to be the next governor. (Applause.)

I urge all the citizens of this state and around the country,
Republican, Democrat, or independent alike, to go to the polls. But I
believe when those discerning Democrats and those wise independents
take a look at the candidates that I'm here to support, they're going
to vote for them. It's in the best interests of their families, it's
in the best interests of this state that these three men be elected to
their offices. (Applause.)

Not only have these three men decided to put their hat in the ring,
all of them married above themselves. (Laughter.) Kimberley Thune is
a great wife of John Thune. She is a wonderful lady. She'll bring a
lot of class -- she has brought a lot of class to Washington. We're
proud to call her friend. John is proud to call her wife, and her kids
are proud to call her mother. (Applause.)

I'm proud to be up here with Mary Dean Janklow, who's been a great
First Lady for the state of South Dakota. (Applause.) And Jean Rounds
will be a great First Lady for the state of South Dakota. (Applause.)

I know something about First Ladies. One of them got stuck with
me. (Laughter.) Laura sends her love, she sends her very best. She's
coming to the state to campaign, which means you drew the short straw.
Laura and I share the values of the people of South Dakota. After all,
as John mentioned, we were raised in west Texas. It's good.
(Laughter.) Then you know what I'm talking about. Actually, when I
married Laura she was a public school librarian. She didn't like
politics, she didn't care for politicians. (Laughter.) Thank goodness
she said yes when I was there on bended knee. America now knows why I
asked her to marry me -- she's smart, she's capable, she's calm, she
is a great First Lady for this country. (Applause.)

I want to thank Dr. Hilpert for opening up this beautiful facility
for this rally. I want to thank the university staff for putting up
with the President's entourage. I want to thank you for your
hospitality. I want to thank the Mayor of Aberdeen, Tom Hooper for
coming out to say hello today. I appreciate -- Tom Hopper. I
appreciate very much his hospitality. I want to thank all my citizens
for coming.

I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here. I want to
thank you for your activity in the democratic process. I want to thank
you for turning out the vote. I want to thank you for what you have
done in the past; I want to thank you for what you are going to do
during the next couple of days, which is to man the phones --
(applause) -- which is to go to your coffee shops and remind the
people there that when you find good, honorable, decent, honest people,
they ought to vote for them. When you go to your community centers,
urge your neighbors to turn out to vote. Make sure that you do your
duty not only to vote, but if you believe in the character and the
vision of these candidates, turn out your neighbors to the polls come
next Tuesday. Work hard. And you know what's going to happen on
election day -- these three good people are going to get elected.
(Applause.)

And there is a reason why. Mike Rounds has got a vision for
education for this state that says no child will be left behind; a
vision which says every child can be educated. There's a reason why to
vote for him, besides the fact that he's a good and honorable man --
it's because he's got a vision that's positive for the future of this
state.

There's a reason to support Janklow, besides the fact he and I are
good buddies. There's a reason to support him, besides the fact it
will be a vote that I can count on to make sure that we go the right
direction in this country -- and that is he's got a solid record of
accomplishment in the state of South Dakota. (Applause.)

And there's a reason why John Thune ought to be in the Senate.
(Applause.) He's an independent fellow who works on behave of the
citizens of South Dakota with all his heart. He can work with both
Democrats and Republicans. He doesn't get caught up in all the nasty
rhetoric that tends to divide our Nation's Capital, that rhetoric which
sends bad signals to many of our citizenry. He's a fellow who works
hard on behalf of the school children of South Dakota. After all, with
his help we were able to send $185 million in educational funding this
year. John Thune was working hard to make sure that the schools of
South Dakota were treated well. (Applause.)

He's a man who is committed to our military -- not just at
election time, by the way. (Applause.) After all, his dad, Harold,
was a World War II fighter pilot, who taught John that peace comes
through strength; that the stronger this nation of ours is, the more
peaceful the world will become. John also, like me, listens to his
mother. (Laughter.) She told him, she said, you get up there, you
better make sure Social Security is secure. And he has made that
commitment. (Applause.)

I look forward to working with John on key issues in the United
States Senate, like Medicare. That's a key issue. This nation has
made a promise to our seniors, and we need to do something about the
Medicare system. After all, medicine is modern, Medicare isn't.
Medicare has changed, but Medicare is stuck in the past. I need a
senator with whom I can work to modernize Medicare, and a modern
Medicare system means prescription drugs for our seniors. (Applause.)

I need somebody I can work with in the Senate to make sure that the
crisis of our -- in our judiciary gets solved. (Applause.) There's
too many vacancies in our -- on our federal benches, which means the
dockets are crowded. It means Americans aren't getting the justice
they deserve. The Senate has done a lousy job with my nominees. I
need a senator with whom I can work to make sure -- (applause) --
to make sure that we stop playing petty partisan politics with the
judicial nominations I've sent up; to make sure people's records aren't
distorted; and to make sure we have a bench that is full of judges who
aren't there to write the law, they're there to strictly interpret the
United States Constitution. (Applause.) And make no mistake about it;
that senator is John Thune. (Applause.)

I appreciate the fact that John understands the importance of
agriculture in our economy and in our way of life. He tried to
convince me of that one time. I said, you don't have to convince me;
I'm from the second largest agricultural state in the country. He
said, yeah, but you're not from South Dakota. I said, no, good point.
(Laughter.) He understands farmers and ranchers. We both know the
values that are found on our farms and our ranches, those family values
that are dear to the heart of America. (Applause.)

He knows if you're good at something we ought to promote it. We're
good at raising crops, and we ought to be selling them all around the
world, for the sake of South Dakota farmers and South Dakota ranchers.
(Applause.) He's a common-sense fellow; he understands good practical
policies can make a large difference.

We need to change our forest policies; we need to change our forest
policies for the sake of the people who live in this state. We need to
change our forest policies so we can preserve our national treasure.
It doesn't make any sense to have a forest policy that will not allow
for thinning and clearing; a forest policy that is so backward that we
allow kindling to build up in these forests, and then with an act of
nature, or with a sleight of hand by mankind, our national treasures
burn to the ground. John Thune has got a common-sense vision for good
forest policy. I look forward to working with him in the United
Nations Senate to preserve these national heritages. (Applause.)

I look forward to working with John to deal with some of the high
hurdles we have to cross as a nation. One of the high hurdles is our
economy. Any time people are looking for work and they can't find work
means we've got a problem in America. We've got some good news today
-- the third quarter growth was positive, and that's good. We're kind
of moving our way toward a time when people can find work. But there's
more to do. There's more to do. And Congress has a role to play.
They need to get an antiterrorism insurance bill to my desk that will
put hard-hats back to work, that rewards hard-hats and not America's
trial lawyers. (Applause.)

But one of the best things we can do is to make sure these tax
relief plans that we -- package we passed is permanent. The Senate
rules say that they last for only 10 years. That creates uncertainty.
How can a small business owner plan for the future if the tax code is
going to shift around on him or her? You can't. If you want to create
jobs, there must be steadiness in our tax code. There has to be a
permanency to the rules. And we passed a tax relief plan that over the
next 10 years will yield $3.2 billion in tax relief to the South Dakota
citizens. That means you have more money in your pocket. And when you
have more money in your pocket, it means you're likely to demand a good
or a service. And when you demand a good or a service, in the
marketplace it means somebody is likely to produce that good or a
service, which means somebody is more likely to find work. For the
sake of jobs, for the sake of job creation, we need to make the tax
relief permanent. (Applause.)

Be wary of those folks who say we need to revisit the tax relief
plan. That's Washington, D.C. code for, I'm fixing to raise your
taxes. When the economy is bumping along, we don't need to be raising
taxes, we need to be reducing taxes. And we've got to also remember
you need to have somebody in Washington that understands whose money
we're talking about. That money is not the government's money. We're
talking about your money. (Applause.)

So I look forward to working with Senator Thune and Congressman
Janklow on the issues that relate to the -- our citizenry. Issues
like economic growth and good health systems and education. The
biggest issue we'll be working on together is to protect the American
people. That's the biggest issue. The biggest challenge we have in
America is to protect our citizens from killers. They're nothing but a
bunch of cold-blooded killers. These people have hijacked a great
religion, and they kill innocent life. See, they don't like America;
they don't value life like we do.

We say in our country, everybody matters, everybody is precious in
the sight of an Almighty, everybody counts. (Applause.) That's not
the ways these folks we're chasing down think. You just got to know
that. But the nation is -- we've been warned. We understand the
stakes. We understand our life is changed. And so there's a lot of
good folks doing everything they can to do our number one job, which is
to protect you. A lot of good folks at the federal level and the state
level and the local level doing everything we can to disrupt and deny,
to run down every hint, every lead. Any time we've got any kind of
inkling that somebody is thinking about doing something to an American
and something to our homeland, you've just got to know we're moving on
it, to protect the United Nations Constitution, and at the same time,
we're protecting you.

But we can do a better job. And that's why I went to the United
States Congress and asked them to join me in the creation of a
department of homeland security, so we can get all of the agencies
involved with protecting you to have as their number one focus your
protection, and if need be, be able to change cultures within these
agencies. The House of Representatives passed a good bill. I want to
thank John Thune for his vote. This bill is stuck in the Senate. It's
stuck in the Senate because some senators are trying to extract a price
from the President, and the price is -- is that I will give up the
capacity to suspend certain bargaining rules in the name of national
security, the ability that every President since John F. Kennedy has
had.

Let me put it to you this way: The work rules -- I wouldn't have
the capacity to suspend some work rules for the department of homeland
security if I accepted their version, but I would for the Department of
Agriculture. Here we are at war; I have more flexibility in dealing
with the work rules in the Department of Agriculture than I would in
the department charged with your protection. It doesn't make any
sense. I need to be able to put the right people at the right place,
at the right time to protect the American people. John Thune will
support me in advancing a homeland security bill that makes sense.
(Applause.)

But the best way to protect you is to find these killers, one at a
time, and bring them to justice. And that's exactly what we're going
to do. (Applause.) It doesn't matter how long it takes, it just
doesn't matter how long it takes to defend our country and defend our
freedoms. There's not a calendar on my desk that says, on such and
such a date you be hauling them home; on such and such a date we quit.
That's not an America I know, and that's not the America you're a part
of. You see, when it comes to defending that which we hold dear, our
freedoms, it doesn't matter what the cost, it doesn't matter how long
it takes.

See, history has called us, it's called this generation into
action. And we are not going to let future generations of Americans
down. We have an obligation to future generations to do whatever it
takes to defend that which we hold dear, and we hold our freedoms
dear. (Applause.)

I signed the biggest increase in defense spending since Ronald
Reagan was the President. I want to thank the members of Congress and
the Senate for getting that bill to me. The reason I asked for such a
big increase is there's two principles involved. One, any time we put
our troops into harm's way, any time we put our youngsters into a zone
in which there's danger, we owe it to them and we owe it to their loved
ones to make sure they've got the best pay, the best training, and the
best possible equipment. (Applause.)

And secondly, we're sending a clear signal to friend and foe alike
that this is a determined nation. I'm determined to make sure that
that doctrine that says, either you're with us or with the enemy, is
still clear in everybody's mind around the world. It still stands, by
the way. (Applause.) If you harbor a terrorist, you're just as guilty
as the terrorist -- that doctrine still stands, too. And that
defense bill -- (applause) -- and the defense bill shows we mean
what we say.

For those of you who have got loved ones in the military, you need
to pass on this message: The Commander in Chief has got all the
confidence in the world, all the confidence, that our military can
achieve any objective. I'm proud of them, and I appreciate their
sacrifices for our great nation. (Applause.)

And we're making progress. We're making progress. Sometimes
you'll see it on your TV screens, and sometimes you won't. See, it's a
different kind of war. In the old days, we destroy tanks and ships and
airplanes, and say, look, we're destroying the enemy's hardware and
we're making progress. This bunch we're fighting is people who hide in
caves and send their youngsters to their suicidal deaths. It's a
different kind of war. But we're still making progress, one at a
time. We're hauling them in. We've got a coalition of people on the
hunt.

A couple of thousand of them have been hauled in and they're no
longer a problem. Like number met a different fate, and I can assure
you they're not a problem. One of them popped his head up the other
day, the guy who was going to be the 20th hijacker -- he's not a
problem to the United States either. We're slowly but surely rounding
these killers up to make America a safe place. (Applause.)

We've got to be clear-eyed, we've got to understand the risk that
our country faces. We've got to be realistic, particularly in
Washington, D.C., when it comes to setting priorities to defending our
homeland. It's important that we not see the world the way we hope it
is, but we see the world the way it really is. The world changed on
September the 11th, 2001. It used to be when a lot of us were growing
up that oceans could protect us. Oh, if there was a conflict overseas,
we could pick or choose if we wanted to be involved, but the threat
wasn't really real to America. It might be real to some Americans who
were overseas, but it wasn't real to our homeland. It was not a
threat. But that all changed. And it's important for those of us who
are responsible for your safety to be clear-eyed about the threats, to
see threats as they are, not as we hope they are.

There is a threat in Iraq. And the threat exists because a leader
there not only has denied and deceived the world about whether or not
he's got weapons of mass destruction, but this is a guy who's used
weapons of mass destruction. He not only has them, he's used them.
And he's not only used them in his neighborhood, he's used them against
his own people.

This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for. He hates the
fact, like al Qaeda does, that we love freedom. See, they can't stand
that. This is a guy who has had connections with these shadowy
terrorist networks. As I said in Cincinnati, Ohio, a while back, he's
the kind of fellow who would love nothing more than to hurt America and
not leave any fingerprints by using a surrogate army on his behalf.
He's a problem. He's a true threat to America and our friends and
allies.

I went to the United Nations a while ago because I want the United
Nations to be effective. It's a different kind of war we face; we face
different kind of threats. It makes sense for there to be an
international body that has got the backbone and the capacity to help
keep the peace. And so here is my message, a message, by the way,
resoundingly supported by members of both political parties in the
Senate and the House: The message to the world is that we want the
U.N. to succeed. We want those resolutions you pass to be listened
to. You have told Saddam Hussein he must disarm; do your job.

And, Saddam Hussein, you have said you'll disarm; you need to do
your job. But if the U.N. won't act, and if Saddam Hussein won't
disarm, for the sake of peace, for the sake of a free future for our
children, we will lead a coalition of nations and disarm Saddam
Hussein. (Applause.)

There's no doubt, there is no doubt that we have got a chance in
this nation to bring some great good to our country and to the world,
out of the evil done to us. You know, I kind of wonder what was going
through the enemy's mind when they attacked us. They probably thought
we were so selfish and that our true religion was materialism, so
self-centered that after 9/11, 2001, oh, we might file a lawsuit or
two. I guess they've been watching too much TV. (Laughter.) They
don't understand the country.

This country is tough, and it's strong, and it's determined. And
by being tough and strong and determined, we can bring peace to the
world. You got to know, amidst all the talk, please tell your kids
that amongst all the talk that you're hearing, the vision is peace.
And I believe it's going to happen. I believe it's not only peace for
Americans, but because we value every life, everybody is important,
each person matters, there can be peace in parts of the world that have
given up on peace. I believe it's possible to have peace in the Middle
East. I believe it's possible to have peace in South Asia.

The enemy has given us a chance, after our grief, not only to be
alert here at home, but to work hard to keep the peace elsewhere. And
we will. And here at home, we can be a better America, too. And
that's important for you all to realize. That out of the evil done to
America can come some incredible good.

There are pockets of despair and hopelessness in America; there are
people who hurt; there are people who wonder whether or not the
American experience is meant for them; people whose lives are hopeless;
people whose lives are addicted; people whose lives have no love. And
while government can help and pass laws, what government cannot do is
put hope in people's hearts, or a sense of purpose in people's lives.
That's done when a fellow citizen takes it upon herself or himself to
put their arm around a neighbor in need, a child, and say, I love you,
what can I do to help you. (Applause.)

And that's happening in this country. And that's happening in
neighborhood after neighborhood, after neighborhood. No, the American
spirit is alive and well. Part of that spirit is serving something
greater than yourself in life.

Today when I came to the airport, I met Clay Crawford, father of
four. He took it upon himself for the past couple of years to mentor
at-risk youths. I'm confident that amongst you there are hundreds of
people who are doing the very same thing. Being a part of that
movement to make sure that the American experience is alive and well in
every corner of our country. It doesn't matter whether you're going to
see a shut-in, or running a Boy Scout troop or a Girl Scout troop. It
doesn't matter whether you're a youngster wanting to be involved with
the USA Freedom Corps. My call to you is, in order to fight evil, is
to do some good.

You see, it's the gathering momentum of millions of acts of
kindness and decency which define the true character of the greatest
country on the face of the Earth.

Thank you for representing the American spirit. Thank you for
coming. May God bless you all, and may God bless America. (Applause.)